


The Primal's Gift

by wyrdann104



Series: The Primal's Gift [1]
Category: Thief (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Lucid Dreaming, Post-Canon, and a way for Garrett to keep his powers, it likes Garrett, my attempt at making sense of what was going on with the Primal, sentient city
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 07:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17199338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyrdann104/pseuds/wyrdann104
Summary: The Primal is the City. For a year, Garrett held a fragment of the Primal inside him. That has effects.For now, Garret dreams.





	The Primal's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> I watched a playthrough of Thief and kind of fell in love with the story. Only, some parts of it were really confusing, so I sat down to try and condense all the bits I gleaned from the game in hopes of making sense. Then I ended up with a thousand-odd words of rambling and idk what else.

Garret stood in a plane of blue-tinted smoke that reminded him of the nightmare-visions of Erin and the grayscale focus-vision of the Primal, and knew he was dreaming.

A figure swirled into existence, poppy smoke condensing into a nearly solid form. Though it had a humanoid shape, it seemed genderless (or maybe all of them at once?) and it was twice as large as Garrett. It had only suggestions of facial features, and what he could see shifted constantly into a thousand different forms. Only the eyes remained static, slitted pupils that glowed the same bright blue as the Primal Stone.

He couldn’t help but be wary, even as they seemed unsettlingly familiar, “Who are you?”

“I am the Primal. And I am the City.” Their voice was that of a multitude speaking in perfect unison. The figure smiled down at Garrett, first with the gap-tooth smile of an old beggar, then with a mouthful of numerous needle-sharp teeth and he abruptly felt very small. “And you are part of the City, are you not? Little thief, born to me and belonging to me. Skittish alley cat, clever magpie, child of the Eternal City. Mine, even before you gained the barest fragment of myself.”

They seemed to grow even larger than before, at least twenty feet in size, and picked Garrett up. Any smart comments or protests Garrett had died in the back of his throat as he was held like a small animal. 

He felt like one too, heart beating frantic double-time, instinctively knowing that he would be crushed if the Primal chose to snap their fingers closed. There was nowhere to run and no way to fight and Garrett could do nothing but watch and listen.

“Why- why are you here? Talking to me?”

The Primal spoke again in their echoing voice, jumping to a topic that seemed unrelated at first, “Those fools who claimed themselves to be the Awakened attempted to trap me, use me, and in their foolishness they poisoned me.” 

The smoke around them wisped into robed shapes that quickly dissipated, then an explosion. After that, the twisted forms of Freaks.

“I was never made for anything as fragile as a human form, and when they bound the girl and I together, I began to destroy her. As she was bound to me, so I to her, and her madness and my fury bled out into the City. Thus the Gloom.” They sighed, faintly regretful but not particularly pained.

More Freaks swirled into existence around them, the agonized bodies of the Gloom-afflicted, and the piles of corpses. Seeing it all together made nausea claw at his stomach, but he pushed it away as the pictures disappeared back into shapeless smoke.

“But you, my thief, separated us and freed me. After all,” and there was warmth and sly amusement in their voice now, echoing around the dreamscape, “While you used the book to free me, you didn’t think to bind me as the Awakened had attempted. You never intended to use me. You returned the piece of myself implanted in your eye without hesitation and so allowed me to purify myself.” 

They smiled down at him, now with straight white teeth that made him think of a noblewoman, and cradled him carefully to their chest, “Thank you, little thief. My thief. So afraid yet so loyal. You stole me, and gave me back to myself. And for that I will grant you a boon. A gift.” 

“You held a piece of me within yourself, and no matter that it was temporarily and unwillingly, no matter how small it was, it could not help but have affects on you. Even without corruption, my power has never been particularly kind to the un-Attuned. The remnants it left behind would wear you down slowly and painfully. But I am not ungrateful. I will ensure the traces left behind do not harm you, and I will even Attune you to myself.” 

Garrett’s mouth was dry as a field during drought, but he managed to ask, “What does that mean?” What would that do to him?

He couldn’t say that he was eager, but he wasn’t exactly in a position to refuse, either. 

The Primal traced his jaw gently with a terrifyingly huge finger that somehow felt like smoke, despite its solidity, “You will be able to sense me, and through me you will better sense the City and what it contains. Through certain rituals you will be able to channel small amounts of my power to enhance yourself.”

“Isn’t that what Northcrest and Orion tried to do, though? I don’t want to be like them.” He didn’t want to end up like them, either. Mad and twisted, obsessed with the delusions their goals had turned into. Using Erin as nothing more than a pawn.

“So clever, my thief, and wiser than many men. But no. Those fools attempted to bind the whole of me and use me to further their own ends. You will ask favors of me, and I will choose to gift them to you. If, of course, you are clever enough to discover how to ask.”

“I understand,” he managed to choke out. He understood part of it at least, and it sounded like he wouldn’t be forced to complete the rituals the Primal spoke of. That was more choice than Garrett had expected, though he doubted that it would be a good idea to not at least try to figure out said rituals. He understood enough.

Another smile, and the Primal bent down to kiss his brow. It burned cold, as if a piece of ice were held to his forehead, and then something deep inside him smoothed out.   
It was a strange feeling, as if something jagged had been tearing at his insides, but he hadn’t felt it until it was no longer there, and now it didn’t hurt at all, even though he was now incredibly aware of the scraped-ragged edges of his spirit. The faint headache he’d had ever since the accident at Northcrest, the one that had persisted even after freeing Erin from the Primal, was gone. He ran a finger over his eye, unsettled. It felt normal, but he abruptly wished for a mirror.

The thought of Erin caused Garret to blurt out without thinking, “Wait! Erin- Is she alive?” Was she alright? Had she been driven mad?

“She lives still, little thief, but she is beyond my borders. She is attempting to find herself.”

When the Primal noticed his confusion and worry, they kindly explained, “In being bound to me parts of herself were worn away, and she must rebuild that which was lost to corruption and madness. But know that she lives and heals. Perhaps one day, she will even return to me.” The smoke swirled into Erin with bright blue eyes, standing on a roof in a unfamiliar city. She was smiling, crouched on an eave like she was about to jump, and Garrett abruptly wanted to reach out and touch the illusion. He resisted the urge.

A knot of worry he’d been carrying around ever since he’d woken to find no trace of Erin anywhere on Orion’s ship abruptly unravelled, and Garrett finally managed to breathe properly. 

“Thank you,” he whispered, tired and wrung out and relieved, painfully aware that he could hide nothing from the Primal and unable to keep up his barriers of aloofness anyway.

The City only smiled and held him close, and Garrett slipped into a true, dreamless sleep as ever shifting poppy smoke swirled around him.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted Garrett to keep his powers after canon and I wanted Erin alive, so. This happened.  
> If I manage to keep my motivation, there might be a sequel with a dishonored crossover. I just need to figure out some semblance of plot.


End file.
